Why should we not talk all
night? It was part of our work. She threw off
the enveloping rug and rose.
``I must dress now,'' she said, briskly. ``I've
called a committee meeting before the morning
session.''
On her way to the door nature smote her with a
rare reminder, but even then she did not realize that
it was personal. ``Perhaps,'' she remarked, tenta-
tively, ``you ought to have a cup of coffee.''
That was ``Aunt Susan.'' And in the eighteen
years which followed I had daily illustrations of her
superiority to purely human weaknesses. To her
the hardships we underwent later, in our Western
campaigns for woman suffrage, were as the airiest
trifles. Like a true soldier, she could snatch a mo-
ment of sleep or a mouthful of food where she found
it, and if either was not forthcoming she did not
miss it. To me she was an unceasing inspira-
tion--the torch that illumined my life. We went
through some difficult years together--years when
we fought hard for each inch of headway we gained
--but I found full compensation for every effort in
the glory of working with her for the Cause that was
first in both our hearts, and in the happiness of being
her friend. Later I shall describe in more detail the
suffrage campaigns and the National and Inter-
national councils in which we took part; now it is
of her I wish to write--of her bigness, her many-
sidedness, her humor, her courage, her quickness,
her sympathy, her understanding, her force, her
supreme common-sense, her selflessness; in short, of
the rare beauty of her nature as I learned to know it.
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